


Scenes From A Coffee House

by AirgiodSLV



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-08
Updated: 2006-04-14
Packaged: 2019-07-10 12:41:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15949562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AirgiodSLV/pseuds/AirgiodSLV
Summary: He’s in his favourite café trying to decide between a white mocha and a cappuccino when the world abruptly decides to cut his vacation from Voldemort short.





	1. Scenes From A Coffee House

**Author's Note:**

> The obligatory shamrock fic. Title borrowed from the Blessid Union song of the same name.

Title: Scenes From A Coffee House  
Pairing: Harry/Draco  
Rating: G  
Disclaimer: This is a complete work of fiction, no disrespect intended.  
Notes: The obligatory shamrock fic. Title borrowed from the Blessid Union song of the same name.

He’s in his favourite café trying to decide between a white mocha and a cappuccino when the world abruptly decides to cut his vacation from Voldemort short.

“Potter,” a terrifyingly familiar voice says cheerfully, and Harry freezes, eyes so wide that he probably looks like a bespectacled deer in headlights.

He turns around slowly, as if by doing so, he is giving the speaker time to magically (ha!) disappear.

Malfoy doesn’t co-operate. Not particularly surprising, but disappointing nevertheless.

“Malfoy,” Harry says heavily, as if the weight of the world on his shoulders has suddenly become more than he can bear now that Malfoy is here to add to his woes.

“That’s right,” Malfoy replies; even more cheerfully if such a thing is possible, a bright smile widening his pointy-chinned face.

“What are you doing here?” Harry asks, frowning deeply enough that his forehead wrinkles and his glasses slip. He pushes them back up and frowns some more.

Malfoy appears unaffected, or at least doesn’t fall all over himself trying to stop him from frowning, which is what most people do these days. “Looking for you,” Malfoy informs him, and the grin gets a little wider as Harry’s dismay increases.

“You found me,” Harry says glumly, and then goes over that last statement again in his head. “How did you find me?”

Malfoy raises his eyebrows and points to the green paper shamrock on the wall, which proclaims “ **Harry Potter!** has joined in the fight against muscular dystrophy” along with many other of its paper brethren. Harry feels momentary chagrin.

“Not very subtle, Potter. And you’re a creature of habit, so I knew if you were here, you’d in all likelihood be back.” Malfoy reclines against the counter in a pose of nonchalant and aristocratic grace. “You’re just lucky it’s me that found you, and not your little Gryffindor cronies. They’ve gone mental since you disappeared, you know.”

“I just wanted a vacation,” Harry mumbles, not meeting Malfoy’s eyes. He doesn’t think there’s any way he can explain why his name is on that shamrock without sounding like even more of an utter git to Malfoy.

The fact was, the barista had been cute and earnest, one of those college girls who want to do their part to save the world, and Harry had thought he wouldn’t mind saving the world someone else’s way for once, especially not someone with lovely dark eyes and pink-and-black spiked hair.

In hindsight, it was a pretty stupid thing to do.

“What do you want, Malfoy?” Harry asks, and he sounds tired because he _is,_ and also a little because he can whine to Malfoy, it’s not like Malfoy could possibly think less of him for doing so. Malfoy’s opinion of him is already through the floor, so Harry’s free to be less than perfect around him.

“I have some ideas for bringing about the demise of You-Know-Who,” Malfoy tells him, pushing off the counter and taking a step towards the barista (not the college girl this time, unfortunately) waiting behind the register to take their orders. “Your mangy friends won’t listen to me, so I’ve come directly to the saviour.”

Harry opens his mouth to defend his friends, and then realizes he doesn’t have the energy. Or perhaps he just doesn’t want to start a fight. “But I’m taking a break,” he hears himself say a bit plaintively, and Malfoy smiles again, in a way that reminds Harry uneasily of a wolf.

“The world can’t wait forever, Potter, and the rest of us are tired of dodging curses.” Malfoy claps him on the back, a gesture which in itself is enough to leave Harry reeling in shock, and steps up to the barista’s counter. “Now let’s get a coffee.”

“But…” Harry tries, and is mildly upset to find that he doesn’t have an excuse.

“I’ll buy,” Malfoy reassures him, and then one eyebrow arches, pale and elegant. “I’ll even throw in a shamrock.”

Harry follows weakly. He supposes it’s for the best, after all. At least it’s Malfoy and not Hermione.

Hermione would have bought the lot.


	2. Scenes From A Coffee House

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently I’m not done yet. Follows [Scenes From A Coffee House](http://airgiodslv.livejournal.com/240601.html).

Title: You’ll Always Be Mine  
Pairing: Harry/Draco  
Rating: G  
Disclaimer: This is a complete work of fiction, no disrespect intended.  
Notes: Apparently I’m not done yet. Follows [Scenes From A Coffee House](http://airgiodslv.livejournal.com/240601.html).

Malfoy might be an utter git, but he also had fairly good ideas when it came to how to rid the world of Voldemort, as well as an excellent working knowledge of Dark magic, both of which were things Harry found himself generally lacking.

That didn’t, however, stop Harry from complaining about their meetings regularly. He considered it a personal obligation.

“Why are we meeting _here_ again?” he asked, with something very close to a sulk threatening at the corners of his mouth. They’d had three meetings to-date during the week, and every one of them had been in this coffee shop. Harry was starting to feel over-caffeinated.

Malfoy sniffed disdainfully. “I like it here. They always put exactly the right amount of cream in. Besides,” he said with a sly sideways glance towards the counter, “the coffee-maker-Muggle is cute.”

Harry opened mouth to tell Malfoy - _again_ \- that the correct term was barista, but as he did something occurred to him, and he had to do a double-take behind the register counter to be sure.

He would be the first to agree that the girl with the pink-streaked dark hair was rather fetching, but she only worked Tuesdays and Thursdays, and it was a Wednesday. Right now, the barista was tall, blond, and very definitely male.

“Malfoy,” Harry hissed, cheeks heating in mortification. “Are you _gay?_ ”

Malfoy favoured him with a rather quelling glare, and then returned his attention to the barista, who was wearing slightly geeky rectangular glasses and glanced back in their direction at that moment as if he knew they were talking about him. Malfoy smiled in what was an appallingly friendly manner.

“Of course I’m gay, Potter,” Malfoy said once the barista had returned his smile and looked away again. His eyebrows arched at an angle that Harry had learned meant he was mildly surprised by the supposed stupidity of those around him. “I have perfect hair. Only gay men have perfect hair.”

“Hey!” Harry protested immediately. Malfoy gave his hair a pointed and meaningful look. Harry subsided, reluctantly admitting defeat. He stirred his caramel macchiato and snuck a suspicious look at the previously innocuous male barista.

“Cheer up, Potter,” Malfoy said good-humouredly. “And drink your coffee. We have a world to save.”


	3. And As I Recall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so it continues. Follows [Scenes From A Coffee House](http://airgiodslv.livejournal.com/240601.html) and [You'll Always Be Mine](http://airgiodslv.livejournal.com/240698.html).

Title: And As I Recall  
Pairing: Harry/Draco  
Rating: PG  
Disclaimer: This is a complete work of fiction, no disrespect intended.  
Notes: And so it continues. Follows [Scenes From A Coffee House](http://airgiodslv.livejournal.com/240601.html) and [You'll Always Be Mine](http://airgiodslv.livejournal.com/240698.html).

Somewhere around the second week of meetings over coffee, Harry found himself actually looking forward to Malfoy’s company. He was also, after the barista revelation, becoming more and more curious about Malfoy’s epiphany of homosexuality.

“So,” Harry began tentatively when the conversation waned. “When did you first know you were gay?”

Malfoy looked up from where he was decorating the latest of his charity shamrock purchases. It amused him to buy one every time they came in, and then put wildly inaccurate and imaginative names on them.

“Potter,” he warned with an accompanying look of horror. “Don’t attempt to use me to explore your closeted psychological issues. You have minions to do that.”

Harry had long since given up trying to explain friendship to Malfoy, so he didn’t bother now. “But there must have been a moment,” he pressed. “When you knew, I mean. I’m just curious.”

Malfoy finished writing on his shamrock (“ **Future Ruler of the Universe!** has joined in the fight against muscular dystrophy”) and fixed Harry with a stern glare. “Are you working up to something? Because I assure you, I’m not about to reveal the sordid details of my past liaisons for your personal amusement.”

Harry blushed and pretended he hadn’t. “No, I don’t…I was just curious.”

Malfoy harrumphed his disbelief of this assertion and held his shamrock up critically, scanning the coffee counter for an open spot to tack it up. His gaze lingered a second too long on the individual _behind_ the counter, and Harry took the opportunity to show how supportive he was of Malfoy’s chosen life style.

“You should ask him out,” he said encouragingly.

Malfoy’s look of horror returned, increased tenfold. “Sleep with a Muggle? Even _you_ wouldn’t go that far, Potter.”

Harry opened his mouth, and closed it again when he couldn’t come up with anything to say that wouldn’t likely horrify Malfoy further.

Thankfully, at that moment the girl with the pink-streaked hair walked in to start her shift, and Harry made an excuse about needing a refill, leaving Malfoy to doodle snakes on his paper shamrock.

“Hi,” he said to the girl, and was about to order when she shrugged her coat off with a smile and he saw the rainbow-shimmer of beads around her neck. His face fell along with his spirits, and he returned to the table several minutes later with a disappointed expression and a fresh coconut milk latte.

“There’s no hope,” he announced despondently to Malfoy, falling into his chair with what he sincerely hoped was casual-but-stricken grace.

Malfoy looked distinctly unimpressed. He also clearly thought it beneath him to inquire what Harry meant, so Harry told him instead.

“She’s one of your sort,” he clarified, jerking his head towards the traitorous heart-breaking barista.

There was a moment in which Malfoy’s expression remained perfectly blank, uncomprehending, and then he frowned in the direction of the counter and his eyes grew wide with shock.

“Lesbians!” he hissed, hand waving as if to ward off the evil eye. He turned a wild-eyed gaze back to Harry, face turning a vivid red. “Never mention them as my sort again, Potter, never!”

Harry was understandably confused. “But I thought you…” he began. Malfoy cut him off with a sharp gesture.

“They’re _women_ , Potter,” he hissed, as if a lowered volume wouldn’t attract any attention when there was so much red-faced arm waving going on. “They lick each other. Down there!”

“Er,” said Harry, who was suddenly distracted, and also slightly uncomfortable in his pants. “Well, yes.”

“It’s disgusting,” Malfoy proclaimed, sitting back in his chair as if that settled things. Which, in his mind, it probably did. “And they’re all out to get us. Every one of them.”

“Riiight,” Harry said carefully, because Malfoy could be volatile when worked up, and Harry wasn’t sure how deep his anti-lesbian sentiments ran. “Do you want another coffee? Decaf, maybe?”

“Here? With that creature working behind the counter, doing who-knows-what?” Malfoy sounded deeply offended. “Absolutely not.”

He drew his wand and flicked, and the shamrock flew across the (thankfully empty) seating area to affix itself to the wall. Harry sighed.

“Only you could have chosen a café like this,” Malfoy continued with a sniff. “It just goes to show how plebian your taste is.”

Harry bit his tongue to keep from mentioning that it was Malfoy who’d insisted they keep coming here, because he already knew it would do absolutely no good. He might as well just accept the blame and let Malfoy drag him off somewhere he considered more suitable. At least it would be a change from all of the caffeine and shamrock décor.

“Lesbians,” Malfoy said venomously as they left through the jingling door. “Really.”


	4. Never Really Down (with Coffee Shops)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> But wait, there's more! Follows [Scenes From A Coffee House](http://airgiodslv.livejournal.com/240601.html), [You'll Always Be Mine](http://airgiodslv.livejournal.com/240698.html) and [And As I Recall](http://airgiodslv.livejournal.com/240999.html)

Title: Never Really Down (with Coffee Shops)  
Pairing: Harry/Draco  
Rating: PG  
Disclaimer: This is a complete work of fiction, no disrespect intended.  
Notes: But wait, there's more! Follows [Scenes From A Coffee House](http://airgiodslv.livejournal.com/240601.html), [You'll Always Be Mine](http://airgiodslv.livejournal.com/240698.html) and [And As I Recall](http://airgiodslv.livejournal.com/240999.html)

Draco picked the next café, which was rather more trendy than Harry tended to frequent, full of neon-design lights and twenty-somethings lounging about wearing a lot of black. Harry felt uncomfortable for the first five minutes, and then Draco breezed in – late as usual – and Harry nearly leapt from the table in relief.

Then he noticed what Draco was wearing on his face.

“Malfoy,” he said with a frown, “Are those _glasses_?”

Draco glared, through what were indeed glasses, and the thin metal frames seemed to lend his gaze even more sternness. “The fluoride lights hurt my eyes,” he defended with the air of someone who has absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. “And the vision spell was giving me migraines.”

“Fluorescent,” Harry corrected automatically, and then peered closer. “Vision spell? Have you… _always_ worn glasses?”

“No,” Draco snapped with another accompanying glare, “I’ve always used a vision spell. And it’s easier in sunlight. Have you ordered, or are we going to be here all day?”

Harry lifted his coffee mug in mute surrender, and Draco stalked off to terrify the baristas. A few minutes later he was back, cradling an oversized blue-violet mug and sniffing the contents with an expression of bliss.

Harry only realized he was staring when Draco looked up from his latte, and the peaceful expression rapidly degenerated into a scowl.

“Not another word about the glasses,” he warned darkly. “And I’m not sorry for calling you any names regarding them when we were in school, because you deserved them for not being able to cast a proper vision spell anyway.”

“Actually, I think they look rather sexy,” Harry said, before he could bite his tongue to stop himself.

Draco raised a fine white-blond eyebrow. Harry scrambled to cover. “I just…I don’t think they’re unbecoming, is all. It’s not like I find you _attractive_ in them, or anything,” he assured Draco in a very blasé fashion. “That would be ridiculous. Ha ha.”

“Stop while you’re ahead, Potter,” Draco advised, sipping from his trendy mug with his ridiculous – and yet still admittedly very sexy – glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. “I wouldn’t be surprised by any kinks you had, really. You’re a very queer boy.”

“I am not!” Harry yelped defensively, before realizing as another eyebrow arched knowingly that Draco had meant queer in the sense of weird, not of…anything else. Anyway, he still had reason to be offended.

“You’re probably completely sick,” Harry challenged, to deflect from the topic of the sexy glasses and his own possible queerness. “I’ll bet you like…Dark things, like…like Parseltongue, and the Cruciatus curse.”

Draco favoured him with a singularly quelling look. “That,” he pronounced in the tones of one sadly disappointed, “is so cliché. Show a little imagination, Potter.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not true,” Harry replied stubbornly. “I’ll bet you get turned on, hearing Vol—You-Know-Who speak to snakes.”

“ _Fuck. You,_ ” Draco said in carefully accented Parseltongue. Harry nearly fell out of his chair in shock.

“I learned it to say to You-Know-Who,” Draco announced, looking rather pleased with himself. “Could you understand me?”

“Yes,” Harry stammered, gulping cappuccino from his mug so quickly that he scalded his tongue. He avoided Draco's eyes, drank his coffee, and wondered vaguely what he was going to do now. Because the glasses were one thing, but the Parseltongue…

That was just hot.


	5. A Group of Beatniks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [](https://tapfan06.livejournal.com/profile)[tapfan06](https://tapfan06.livejournal.com/), in apologetic lieu of other requested fic. Follows [Scenes From A Coffee House](http://airgiodslv.livejournal.com/240601.html), [You'll Always Be Mine](http://airgiodslv.livejournal.com/240698.html), [And As I Recall](http://airgiodslv.livejournal.com/240999.html) and [Never Really Down (with Coffee Shops)](http://airgiodslv.livejournal.com/243818.html)

Title: A Group of Beatniks  
Pairing: Harry/Draco  
Rating: PG  
Disclaimer: This is a complete work of fiction, no disrespect intended.  
Notes: For [](https://tapfan06.livejournal.com/profile)[**tapfan06**](https://tapfan06.livejournal.com/), in apologetic lieu of other requested fic. Follows [Scenes From A Coffee House](http://airgiodslv.livejournal.com/240601.html), [You'll Always Be Mine](http://airgiodslv.livejournal.com/240698.html), [And As I Recall](http://airgiodslv.livejournal.com/240999.html) and [Never Really Down (with Coffee Shops)](http://airgiodslv.livejournal.com/243818.html)

“I have a plan,” Harry announced.

Draco looked extremely skeptical. He had every right; they’d been at this for weeks now, and the best idea Harry had come up with was to ask for one of the little buy-ten-get-one-free coffee punch-cards. It had been a good idea, and would eventually earn them a free latte, but wasn’t really anything on the scale of defeating Voldemort.

“A spell,” Harry continued, when Draco’s skeptical look wasn’t immediately followed by several scathing and belittling put-downs. “To defeat Vol-…” Draco winced, and Harry hastily backtracked. “You-Know-Who.”

“Let’s hear it, then,” Draco replied promptly. Harry flushed a little.

“Well, it’s…it has certain requirements.” Harry hastily gulped some of the foam off of his hazelnut cappuccino and tried to act cool. Draco continued to look distinctly unimpressed.

“Yes?” he prompted, drumming his fingers against the table in a blatant display of his impatience with all things Potter-related.

Harry took a deep breath and threw caution to the wind. “You need to learn Parseltongue.”

Draco frowned, but he did not leap up instantly and yell, ‘You snake-loving pervert! I know what you’re up to!’ so Harry breathed a little easier.

“He’s part snake, right?” Harry continued. “Or at least in communication with them, and it’s his only real weakness, part of the reason they think I’m the one who’s supposed to defeat him, so it makes sense that the spell would be in Parseltongue."

Draco looked like he was actually considering it. Harry took a moment to mentally congratulate himself on his improvisational skills.

“But why do I have to learn it, then?” Draco asked after another moment of contemplation, and Harry floundered for a brief second before coming up with a response.

“Because they won’t be expecting it from you,” he pointed out hopefully. “You’re the secret weapon.”

That was apparently the right answer. Draco looked startled, and then began visibly preening. One of the trendy all-in-black guys at the next table over checked him out as he did so, being none too subtle about it, either. Harry gave him a good glare and he quickly took his attention elsewhere.

“So teach me,” Draco said decisively, his mind clearly made up. “What are the words to the spell? What do I have to say?”

“Er…” Harry hadn’t actually thought this far ahead. His focus had been on getting Draco to agree to the plan, not actually on the details of the plan itself. “Well, you need to say…”

His mind was blank. He was coming up with nothing, although rationally, his mind told him, he could have Draco say ‘Potato tomato parsnip’ in Parseltongue and Draco would never know the difference.

His mind at that point unfortunately skipped over vegetables and got distracted by Draco’s eyes behind his glasses, mellow today since nothing had infuriated him beyond a mild commotion at the counter when the barista spilled foam down the side of his mug. They were very pretty, really, Harry thought. And he could have Draco say anything Harry wanted him to say…

“ _Oh baby god yes more,_ ” Harry said out loud in Parseltongue, and then was fairly certain that he turned ten shades of red in less than a second. Draco appeared unaffected, which was a relief. If Draco was having him on and could actually understand Parseltongue, Harry was fairly sure he would die of embarrassment.

Draco’s look of intense concentration suddenly turned suspicious. “How do I know you’re not teaching me to tell snakes that I’m lunch, come and eat me?” he asked irritably.

Harry thought very hard, very fast. “Because I’ll be saying it too?” he hazarded. “And besides,” he added desperately, “You’re the secret weapon, remember? That would be self-sabotage.”

The secret weapon reminder thankfully did what Harry had hoped, making Draco relax and preen again. He really was distractingly attractive when he did that. Harry shot another warning look at black-trendy-guy just for good measure.

“All right,” Draco agreed, sounding pleased. “Give it to me again.”

“ _I want to fuck you so badly,_ ” Harry said without thinking.

Draco scowled at him. “Too much, too fast. I can’t understand it, I can only mimic. Say it again, slower.”

Harry flushed, but repeated the words, slowly and seriously. “ _I want to fuck you._ ”

“ _I want to fuck you,_ ” Draco echoed carefully. Harry had to shift in his chair a bit.

“ _Your sexy glasses are driving me insane,_ ” Harry said, and wondered how on earth he was going to remember all of what he’d taught Draco as a spell. More importantly, he wondered what he would do when Draco was confident he’d mastered the spell and wanted to take off to defeat Voldemort as the secret weapon for the side of Light. While the present situation was definitely making Harry’s ploy worth it, he had serious doubts about the future.

Draco started to speak again, and then glanced sideways and hissed in a way that was not particularly snake-like, but entirely Slytherin. “We can’t do this here,” he said, and Harry realized that they were drawing casual curious attention, probably from sitting in a public place hissing like snakes.

“Want to come over to my place, and I’ll teach you how to do it?” _Oh god_ , he thought as soon as the words were out of his mouth. _I sound like a bad pick-up line._ Harry winced.

Draco grimaced. “That sounds like a terrible pick-up line, Potter,” he announced. “Besides, I would clearly be the one teaching _you_ how to do it, so don’t bother putting on any airs.”

Harry’s brain fizzled briefly. He tried to act casual. “You’ve done it before, then?” he inquired off-handedly, as if it meant nothing at all to him whether Draco ever had or not.

Draco smirked at him. “I shared a room with Blaise Zabini,” he said loftily. “I know more than you can even imagine, Potter.”

Harry seethed inwardly, and made a mental note to teach Draco how to say ‘ _I will never think of Zabini again, he is nothing next to you,_ ’ at the very first chance he got.


End file.
